


Imagine It's Reality

by starspangledmanwithaplan



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Language, F/M, Familial Angst, Family Drama, Family Feels, Family Issues, Feels, Female Reader, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, Language, Panic Attacks, Reader-Insert, Reader-Interactive, diino500, diinofayce, writing challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 12:24:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17488001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starspangledmanwithaplan/pseuds/starspangledmanwithaplan
Summary: Clint is there to help you during your lowest point.





	Imagine It's Reality

Different. Weird. Abnormal. Quirky. Odd. 

You had been called many names over the course of your life, but none of them hurt as much as freak, and that was only because it was your parents that uttered that word. 

It was the night of your sixteenth birthday, you should have been having a great time, but instead, you were sitting in the corner of your room, knees drawn up, arms wrapped around your legs, and you were sobbing uncontrollably. 

Your mom and dad were outside of your room, pounding their fists against the locked door, hurling insults at you, demanding that you make it stop.  _ It _ being your imagination; the one thing you loved about yourself, they hated with every fibre of their being. Ironic considering they were the ones that created you during one drunken night. It was the small oddities in their DNA that, when put together, made you who you were,  _ what _ you were.

The sound of your father unlocking the door propelled you from your spot. You grabbed the thick envelope of cash - money you’d saved up from allowances, summer jobs, birthdays, and christmases - and the bag you had packed three months ago, threw on a pair of shoes and a hooded sweatshirt, and lunged out the window. The screams of your name quickly faded away as it became increasingly evident that they were not pursuing you. Unconditional love, my ass.

Just because your parents didn’t want you, didn’t appreciate what you could do, didn’t mean other people didn’t. You had made quite the name for yourself, providing services to those that were willing to pay for it. Hey, a girl’s gotta eat, right?

Most of your clientele were those suffering a great loss; a family member or significant other that they wanted to see, ‘just one more time’, to have that one important conversation with, to say the one thing they never got to say. The ones that pulled at your heartstrings were the hardest to do.

Then there were the people that were both borderline, and full-fledged psychotics; stalkers, murderers, the ones with obsessions. You watched as they strangled the life from their bosses, significant others, children, parents, even strangers on the street. They kidnapped and tortured the ones they couldn’t have, the objects of their dark and twisted desire. 

Anything and everything they wanted, you gave them, for the right price, of course.

Nick Fury found you fifteen years later, said he could, ‘really use someone like you on the team.’

“Team?” you scoffed. “What team?”

Turned out the government was putting together a task force of heroes to protect the innocent lives of the world. How they thought you fit into that description was beyond you, but you were up for a change of pace, though you wouldn’t admit that just yet. 

You went in not knowing what to expect, but Clint Barton wasn’t it. He hadn’t been abducted and experimented upon, he didn’t volunteer to undergo an insane experiment, he wasn’t as old as your great-grandparents with the face of a thirty-five year old; Clint was just a man. A man that could shoot the hair off your ass from a thousand yards without breaking a sweat. 

Clint quickly became your best friend, though you wanted more. He was kind and generous, sincere and loving, funny and smart, charismatic and nerdy; anything and everything you’d ever wanted in a man, Clint was it. But you and Clint were coworkers, nothing more, because who had time for love when the world constantly needed saving. 

And then, one night, all of that changed. 

Word had just reached you that your parents had died, you didn’t care for specifics, but their deaths had an effect on you that you hadn’t expected; genuine sorrow and anguish. In almost twenty years, you’d never sought them out, showing them how amazing your life was, how there were people in the world that cared about you, freaky powers and all. Now that they were dead, you wanted to tell them exactly how you felt. 

You were in the middle of a field behind the compound, projections of your parents five feet in front of you. They were wearing the same clothes as the night you left, the same stone-cold expressions, eyes full of vitriol and regret. You were screaming at them, spewing words of hate and contempt, crying so hard that your brain and eyes were pulsing. Despite finally telling them how you felt, the weight in your chest didn’t lessen. In fact, it grew bigger, making it hard to breathe. You fell to your knees, fingers digging into the dirt, and screamed. 

God, you couldn’t breathe. Your heart was jackhammering, the blood was surging through you, and it felt like there were electric pulses in every atom of your body,  _ crackling _ and  _ zipping _ through you. You wanted to reach inside and dig them out, one by one, until you couldn’t feel anything. You’d been hurting for so long, burying the pain and betrayal beneath layers and layers of coping mechanisms, and all of those melted away the second you heard of your parents’ passing.

A pair of hands were on your face, forcing you to look away from the mirror image of your parents. You struggled in their grip, not wanting to look away, wanting to watch everything around them burn. Green eyes drilled into yours as they settled in front of you, concern etched into their features. It was Clint, and he was desperately trying to pull you back to reality. 

“Come on, Y/N,” he pleaded loudly. “Come back.”

You roared in frustration and agony, eyes screwed shut, tears leaking out. “I ca- can’t. It… it hurts.”

“I know it does,” Clint lamented, his forehead against yours. A shudder rolled through him, from the tips of toes to the top of his head, one that had just ricocheted through you. “God, I know.”

You pulled in a bone-shuddering breath and opened your eyes to find Clint crying. The image of your parents flickered in the background as your attention on them waned. With dirty hands, you clasped Clint’s wrists and swallowed around the knot in your throat. 

“They were my parents, Clint,” you sobbed. “It was their job to protect me, and they  _ hurt _ me.”

“They did,” Clint agreed coolly. “And, despite that, you turned out to be an amazing woman.”

Everything stopped in that moment; your mind, your heart, all of the anxiety ballooning inside of you. 

“Wha- what?” you stammered.

Clint pulled back and smiled gently. “You’ve helped so many people, even before you joined the team.”

When you scoffed and rolled your eyes, Clint went on. “Was it the most practical way to help people? No, but… Jesus,  **your imagination is so strong it leaks into reality** , and that is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.” 

You were speechless. Nobody had ever said anything like that when it came to your ability. People were scared of it, hell, they even respected it, but nobody  _ liked _ it. Your heart jumped, in a completely different manner than it had been doing mere moments ago. Currently, it was because Clint was looking at you in a way you’d never noticed before 

There was something you wanted to say, but you never got the chance because Clint was kissing you, silencing the words on the tip of your tongue. No, wait, that was his tongue. You melted against him, gripped his shoulders, and showed him exactly how you felt about him. 


End file.
